Cases - Wharf Properties v Eric Cumine Associates (No. 2)

Record details

Name

Wharf Properties v Eric Cumine Associates (No. 2)

Date

[1991]

Citation

52 BLR 8

Keywords

Construction claim - loss and expense claim - costs - extra costs - pleadings - no reasonable cause of action

Summary

The clients' actions against their architects for negligent design and contract administration were struck out as incomplete and therefore disclosing no reasonable course of action. Per Lord Oliver:

'the pleading is hopelessly embarrassing as it stands .... in cases where the full extent of extra costs incurred through delay depend upon a complex interaction between the consequences of various events, so that it may be difficult to make an accurate apportionment of the total extra costs, it may be proper for an arbitrator to make individual financial awards in respect of claims which can conveniently be dealt with in isolation and a supplementary award in respect of the financial consequences of the remainder as a composite whole. This has, however, no bearing upon the obligation of a plaintiff to plead his case with such particularity as is sufficient to alert the opposite party to the case which is going to be made against him at the trial.'